<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Monument by peaceloveandjocularity, stateofintegrity</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595410">Monument</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/pseuds/peaceloveandjocularity'>peaceloveandjocularity</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, mention of conversion therapy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:40:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,643</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/pseuds/peaceloveandjocularity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You can see the monument that inspired this fic here: https://topshelf2112-blog.tumblr.com/post/625004448812564480/this-monument-inspired-a-long-fic-i-am-working-on</p><p>When Winchester is declared KIA in Korea, Klinger inherits his estate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Monument</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>1952</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Snooping through the drawers and footlockers of superior officers was second nature to Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger. He undertook this gentle underhandedness without malice (and he completely exempted Potter, who really was like a father to him); he just liked </span>
  <em>
    <span>knowing </span>
  </em>
  <span>things. Even if sometimes the things he learned hurt like hell. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This</span>
  </em>
  <span> was one of those times. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Major Charles Emerson Winchester was away helping out the 4055th, so Klinger was rifling through the absent man’s trunk, hoping for culinary delicacies… or at least something that wasn’t powdered. What he found instead of Swiss chocolates or French caramels was a letter from Beacon Hill with a picture enclosed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The letter was high falutin and flowery, but it boiled down to, Klinger was horrified to discover, this: </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dear son, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>We have finally completed the monument commemorating the loss of your dear, dear brother. We have enclosed a photograph, knowing you will desire to visit his grave upon your return. We are still terribly disappointed that he was the one to die and we were left with you. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Klinger grieved for the proud Major, thinking he’d endured such a loss while he was in their midst and said nothing. Then he saw the dates. He didn’t know the Major’s exact birthday, but he guessed Charles’ age at mid 30s… which meant he’d been what? Five? Six? No wonder the Major was always spouting off about Winchester pride! He was trying to be both Charles Emerson Winchester III </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> the lost son; Klinger doubted there was much space left to just be himself. Tucking the hateful missive back where he’d found it, he vowed to be kinder to the Major. The man’s own family wasn’t good to him; chances were he needed a friend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <b>September 1953</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Salt crusted his lashes. The Major had been gone for six weeks, but Klinger still cried himself to sleep most nights. It was hard not to considering that Charles had, quite unbeknownst to anyone but Honoria, made Klinger his heir, so the ex-Sergeant was now living in the house of the lost war hero (his family’s preferred way of speaking of him), surrounded by Charles’ possessions and sleeping under an afghan he’d hastily created from the man’s sweaters. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the real kicker? Charles had been in love with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max couldn’t claim to have spectacularly bad luck (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Charles </span>
  </em>
  <span>had been the one to die in the waning days of the war), but what kind of curse had to be cast on you to make it so you only found out </span>
  <em>
    <span>posthumously </span>
  </em>
  <span>that you’d been serving beside the great love of your life? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d never even held the man’s hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew that Honoria didn’t want him going up to that awful monument (modified, now, to commemorate </span>
  <em>
    <span>two </span>
  </em>
  <span>Winchester sons withs its marble pillars and somber, empty urns) - and she was probably right. Charles’ earthly remains weren’t actually buried there anyway; like the body of Henry Blake, Charles’ actual form was lost in a country to which he never should have been sent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max needed to go, however. Maybe this time he could open the wrought iron gate, climb the little hill, sit on the cold and unforgiving mourner’s bench and </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>say goodbye. He hadn’t believed the news at first. Then shock after shock had fallen on him. He was Charles’ heir which, combined with his penchant for wearing dresses and Charles’ loss, somehow elevated him, in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. W to Charles’ </span>
  <em>
    <span>betrothed</span>
  </em>
  <span>. So, he sat with these stoic mourners at the funeral - made family by a legal document of whose existence he had been entirely unaware - and he took possession of what he had been given (they insisted and he was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> tired). He comforted them in the aftermath as best he could, telling stories of Charles that surprised even him. He’d known he’d had feelings for the Major (who in the 4077th hadn’t known?) but if those feelings were a house in his heart, then he kept finding attics and basement rooms, expansions and attachments - and each discovery brought him terrible pain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As a way to release some of what he was feeling (or to process it at least) he went to the monument when he could not sleep. He hated the way the stone seemed to drink dew or rain water, darkening, but most of all he hated the new-hewn letters there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those letters, beginning “Maj.,” were, however, all of Charles he had, so he spoke to the very edifice he despised, telling his lost friend about the life (an excuse for one, at least) that he led in his absence. This early autumn morning, he hadn’t yet begun to speak. Instead, he escorted handfuls of leaves away from the base of the grave. Then he sat before it and started the way he always did, “Hiya, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Max</span>
  </em>
  <span>!? What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger began to shake. This was really it then. Grief and stress from the war and signing legal forms he had no business signing for wealth he did not want had finally snapped the slender branches of his mind. In some ways it was almost a relief. If his mind broke good and clean now, maybe he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wouldn’t know </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles was gone and it wouldn’t hurt so damn much all the time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Turning, he blinked at the bedraggled phantom which had come straggling out of the mist. He straightened his back as best he could to declare, aloud, “I don’t believe in ghosts. I’ve seen ‘em before, Private Weston walked off into a whole crowd of ‘em,” (and hadn’t it been cruel, Klinger reflected, to think of wearing </span>
  <em>
    <span>fatigues</span>
  </em>
  <span> into the afterlife?). “And I still don’t believe, so leave me alone.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles Emerson Winchester III, the very much </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> phantasmal, had been informed of the army mix-up declaring him dead. However, this was the same army that had tried to court martial almost every officer he had ever served with - and it had threatened Pierce </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>Klinger with </span>
  <em>
    <span>hanging</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of all barbaric things. He had not believed for a second that anyone had actually accepted the news of his death. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighed at the wild eyed Maxwell Klinger, then felt his eyes go wide as his brain finally decided to remind him that Max didn’t live in Boston. “What are you doing here?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mourning you,” came the answer. Good heavens! Was Klinger tear-choked? “What are you doing here? Thought you’d be in Korea, honestly.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Or one of those awful places your mom told me they sent you to be “cured” before they saw that they were destroying you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mama insisted I come pay my respects to Archie since the new stone is up.” He realized, now, that she might have been doing something else. “Klinger, ghosts do not travel first class. And per my earlier question, why are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>in Boston</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And how is that you can be not only lovely - but, in the shadow of these graves, morbidly so? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Klinger had lost weight since they had seen each other, Charles saw, and he wore asters and black eyed Susans in his hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that why you’re haunting me? Do ghosts forget stuff from when they’re alive? You left me everything, remember? I didn’t want it so much but your parents said they’d be sad if I left too, so I’ve tried to stay and help out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles was exhausted. “I left you everything </span>
  <em>
    <span>in the event that I died</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. It’s probably bad luck or something to be mad at a ghost, but a heads up when you were here woulda been swell. I slept beside you once - you coulda said something besides telling me about this place and how once I wouldn’t have been allowed to step foot here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oof. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>had been unkind, especially considering the fact that Klinger had not possessed any way to look in on his thoughts of bringing him here, bearing him over the threshold, giving him a home. “Klinger, I am not dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got the flag from your funeral on my dresser, Major. Your parents gave it to me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles recoiled. This wasn’t Klinger being stubborn. This was Klinger pushed through the gates of a personal hell to walk alone. It had all been a tragic mistake, but now it was up to the physician to undo it. He tried evidence. “This is a plane ticket and my wallet, Max. You are not aware of it, but it contains a picture of you I lifted from the files of the late Henry Blake. Convinced?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. I don’t know what kind of stuff ghosts have.” Private Weston had kept his russack, hadn’t he? What would a ghost want with C-rations? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tried more tactile proof. “Alright. Well, ghost or not, I hate to see dew staining your hem. Allow me to walk you to my house. Inside, I will be most pleased to kiss you. Would that serve as proof?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles knew how much Klinger adored touch, but even this failed. “It isn’t your house, Major. I mean, you can haunt it if you want, I guess, but you left it to me.” Some part of him kind of hoped ghost Charles </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>stay. It was good (if eerie and painful) to look at him and they still had the back and forth he’d come to love and depend on. It was more than he’d been hoping for, even if his skin was crawling a little. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles tried logic. “Correct me if I am wrong, darling,” (he had always called Klinger this in his thoughts; maybe hearing it aloud would convince the poor addled thing). “But did not our own Captain Pierce get labeled KIA by the very same army that sent word to you of my demise? Why are you so quick to believe an organization of warriors who refused to say we were even at war? Why are you so quick to believe I am dead when </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m right here</span>
  </em>
  <span>!? Do I truly look </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad?!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes that had seen too much death and had imagined his death too often looked him over. “I don’t get the things I want.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the most terrible pronouncement he had ever heard. “I am not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I am a doctor. I know the subtle differences that separate living bodies from dead ones. Allow me to demonstrate.” Wrapping strong arms around the pretty creature in a dress too thin for autumn wind, Charles kissed him hard enough to bruise. He stopped only when he realized (and how it hurt to do so) that Klinger wasn’t kissing him back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dazed, the former Sergeant stepped free of the circle of his arms. “I don’t know why you’re haunting me like this. I didn’t do anything wrong.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles ached to touch his hair, to stroke the petals that adorned it. “I would kiss you senseless, you stupid man,” he said then, “but you seem to have already lost it.” Then a new solution came to him. Maybe Klinger couldn’t accept the word of a “ghost;” but what about the words of their living comrades? “If you will not believe me even with my mouth on yours, then we will call Pierce or Hunnicutt or Colonel Potter. You’ll believe them, will you not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger blinked. “Ghosts can telephone, Major? Or you want me to dial?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles wanted to scream. Of all the love interests he could have chosen, he’d gone and picked a superstitious skirt-wearer with gypsy legends in his mind and a too-healthy fear of the supernatural! “I am quite sure the money I left you will more than cover the charges for a second and even third opinion.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked at him strangely then. “I don’t know. I haven’t touched a cent of it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles felt himself frowning. “What? Why? What kind of idiotic life have you been leading?” Klinger deserved the best. With access to his money, why wasn’t he </span>
  <em>
    <span>having </span>
  </em>
  <span>it? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why would I want anything that came to me for losing you? I only stayed at all because your ma really wanted it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> deceased. Given a fortune the likes of which he probably couldn’t comprehend, the love of his life hadn’t even bought a pair of designer shoes. And his mother, who had always seemed as beautifully and distantly cold as a glacier to him (he and Honoria were given to joking they’d been calved from ice rather than birthed) had been transformed into a woman who allowed herself to be called “Ma” by a blue collar immigrant who wore dresses. Could any force </span>
  <em>
    <span>other </span>
  </em>
  <span>than death wreak such transformations? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That money was intended to give you a good life,” he said, stupidly. Then, “Come. Let us call and get my place among the living reestablished. You remember how to work a phone from your clerking days do you not?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not a very nice ghost.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles rolled his eyes. “Very similar to live then, isn’t it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding to follow this spook, Klinger fell into step beside him. “Thought death might have mellowed you a bit,” he confided. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My ‘death’ seems to have mellowed you. No earrings. No eyeshadow. Still in black. Don’t you think that holding to full Victorian mourning customs may be overdoing things a tad?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked hurt at what had been intended more as teasing than criticism. He stopped walking, planted his hands on his hips. He didn’t notice it, but the monument’s shadow fell on his shoulders. “I never got to hold your hand. While you were alive, I never got to know how you felt. I barely ever got to hear you call me by my name! So, I’ll grieve all that as long as I want, which will probably be forever, and even you don’t get to tell me not to.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh my</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger’s ringing voice made it very clear just how much of a mess he had made of his (after)life, how much there was to set to rights. “Maxwell, if I am dead and you do not believe in ghosts, why are we talking?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I miss you, Major, and that’s the only thing that still makes any sense in my whole rotten life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max… are you unaware of the maxim that it is terrible, terrible luck to make a ghost cry, you fool?” He was crying - and not softly or prettily either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged with eyes as wet as his. “There’s nothing left in me to hurt.” </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Beacon Hill</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In a bid to convince Klinger that he lives and breathes, Charles enlists his family.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Charles’ attempts at reanimation proved, at least for the day, unsuccessful. Phones rang all over the United States, but no one answered to dispute Klinger’s newfound belief that he’d gotten Charles back… in a somewhat less than corporeal fashion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Worst of all, the deep depression in which Klinger now existed, Charles soon saw, robbed him of his rest. He was, and it wasn’t a bit humorous, dead on his feet. Charles eventually got him to settle down and try to nap, but his sleep was restless and he murmured in what Charles thought must be Arabic, sounding lost. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided that Honoria must be trying to look after Max as far as food was concerned. The refrigerator and cupboards were well stocked with the best of everything and teasing notes had been taped to some items to encourage Klinger to eat them. Exhausted from travel and being exiled in Korea (death made it difficult to have one’s travel orders confirmed), Charles prepared a light repast that would reheat well, deciding that Klinger needed sleep over calories. Halfway through eating, he fell asleep at the table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles woke the next morning to Klinger sitting across from him. “You’re still here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So ‘twould seem. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>live </span>
  </em>
  <span>here, Max.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “Kinda thought you might have to disappear in the morning. Go wherever ghosts go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made Charles think of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don Giovanni</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hamlet </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he would have chuckled if it were not for the terrible certainty in Klinger’s eyes. Those eyes believed that only one of them existed on this mortal plane and Charles was running out of ideas for how to convince him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max, I have never said this to anyone, but let us go to Beacon Hill proper. Perhaps my family will convince you where I have failed to do so.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. The Winchester table was a good one and he didn’t hate brunch food. Cleaning up, though still in black, Klinger went with the Major to his home and was welcomed inside where his insistence that Charles was not entirely among them soon had the entire family concerned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria, who had grown very close to Klinger, first via Charles’ letters and then over six weeks of grieving, was the first to try to make Klinger see the light. “Baby, I don't want to up-upset you more h-here, but that's a real live id-idiot brother. I have y-years of ex-experience at-attesting to this.” She glared at her brother, though. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles sighed, wondering if he could induce a medical coma to get some rest. “Don't give me that look, I've told him as much.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria wasn’t finished. “You can't con-convince your boyfriend you're a-alive when you're in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>same room</span>
  </em>
  <span>? How l-little personality do you have to p-possess for that to be the case?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles would have blanched or blushed at the use of the term “boyfriend” in front of his dour parents. His father was behind a newspaper; his mother was planning the dinner menus for the week as she always did at Sunday brunch. Yet, in this moment, he just didn’t have the energy to care. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You've met him. He's very much into superstitions and the like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger scowled. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>right here,” he objected. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So is C-Charlie, you s-sweet i-idiot,” said Honoria, discreetly adding sugar to his tea. Charles assumed this was part of a caloric campaign to offset Max’s lack of interest in food. He’d lost weight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged, deep in the throes of grief. “A version, sure. It's better than nothing. Don't call a priest or anything, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding that he could at least scandalize the staid members of clan Winchester if he had to endure all this, Charles turned to his sister. “I do hope that you know that I kissed him quite thoroughly and he's still like this.” It had been so thorough a kiss, in fact, that it had made the slender man’s lips quite red - which contrasted nicely with his new, funereal style.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps if y-you had d-done so before your untimely d-death he would believe you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In that moment, Charles very much wished to strangle his beautiful sister. “I didn’t die!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger wasn’t having it. “The army, the monument, and the death certificate in the desk say you did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mrs. Winchester patted her husband’s arm. “You really must erase the monument. The dates at minimum.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles whirled. “The </span>
  <em>
    <span>dates</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Engraving costs,” his father replied without lowering the paper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ignoring this - he surely was home, venom-dripping home - he registered something else Klinger had said. “Wait. What death certificate? What does it say?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger pushed back from the table, ashen. Nori reached for his hand across Charles as if, he reflected, he really were dead. “He can’t h-handle it,” she explained to her brother. “Wherever is your g-graveside manner, Ch-Charles?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It didn’t happen!” Then he quieted. “Perhaps, as much as I loathe psychiatrists, we should contact Dr. Freedman.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria glared at him again, which was especially painful considering he had yet to be hugged in welcome. “You t-truly require s-someone else to reassure your b-boyfriend of your ex-existence!?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked past (perhaps </span>
  <em>
    <span>through</span>
  </em>
  <span>) Charles to correct her. “We never dated.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles couldn’t help it. He turned to his somberly-bedecked love and cried, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Honestly?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Klinger </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>right, of course; it was just that Charles was in no place to accept such agonizing truths. He had been Stateside for less than 50 hours. “What else would suggest?” he asked Honoria. “Aside from Dr. Freedman’s reluctance to grant the fabled section eight for which Maxwell expended so much energy, the two have a great rapport.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time Klinger’s eyes found his. “Well, he didn’t spend two years lying to me, at least.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dead silence reigned for a moment before Charles admitted, “You have me there, Max.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See?” his not-quite-lover then asked his sister. “Dead. The living Charles never would have admitted that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded. “They say death ch-changes people.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles dissected a grapefruit just to have something on which to vent his frustrations. He didn’t recall ever seeing anyone in his family actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>eat </span>
  </em>
  <span>a grapefruit. How many pounds of the stuff must they have wasted over the years? “I’m not dead.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you at l-least like to t-tell the Sergeant </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>you l-left him in the dark for two y-years?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles really </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to tell him. He wasn’t given to declarations anyway, and, if he hadn’t “died” it was likely that Klinger never would have learned of his feelings. But perhaps this would be enough, if not to convince Klinger, then at least to shame the parents who loved him, he suspected, far more as a dead hero than as a living son. “Why didn't I tell him? Perhaps it's because I didn't want him to come home to a meddling sister who would pester him and team up with him against me. Perhaps a deep sense of self loathing instilled in me by dear parents, or perhaps I didn't tell him because he deserves much more than me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mother made an impatient sound. “Charles, your Sergeant is very dear to us. If you had bothered with a civilized introduction, we would have welcomed him from the first. Isn’t that so, Mr. Winchester?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria and Charles both flinched; the old-fashioned form of address was cringeworthy on its own, but it also signaled the displeasure of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>mater familias</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just so,” said Mr. W.; he knew how to answer correctly when it was called for (and when it did not interfere overly with his reading). </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria was still younger sibling enough to pile on. “And I don’t know, Charlie-love, but p-perhaps you could t-try being w-what he deserved. Make a ‘m-monumental’ stride or t-two.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was sick, sister dear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shrugged. But he saw pain in her eyes, too; she was being mean, in part, at least, to try to process her (now unnecessary) grief for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger, meanwhile, was glumly pushing food around his plate. Then he stood and walked out without seeming even to register the strangeness of doing so. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was in that moment, staring at Klinger’s abandoned plate, when Charles realized how full the ex-Sergeant’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>figurative</span>
  </em>
  <span> plate was. Toledo, Klinger had learned in the waning days of the war, was hardly the city he had left. The effects of nearly three years of frontline fear were still, doubtless, making themselves felt. He had also tried (for </span>
  <em>
    <span>his mother’s sake</span>
  </em>
  <span>, God love the man) to make himself part of the Winchester family, a fate Charles wouldn’t have wished on his enemies. Klinger had to be feeling constantly off-kilter in this world of elaborate table settings, classical allusions, and snobbery directed at people to whom he more easily related. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria looked after the departed man with pity. “He’s been in quite a depression since he got the news, you know.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles knew; he could see it. “Him and not you, eh?” he joked feebly. “The news wasn't true. One might think my existence enough to tip the balance.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We've all been upset, you id-idiot. But he n-never got past the d-depression stage of g-grief. W-what would you like h-him to do? Can you im-imagine finding out someone was in l-love with you so much that they left you every-everything they had - but never bo-bothered to tell you? There's s-some anger there s-still, whether you like it or not. Do you know all the t-things that hap-happened to him over there when you should have been p-protecting him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles’ uniquely colored eyes raked over his parents. “How is that none of you have stepped in to help him yet? You were quite quick to try and fix me and my problems, as I recall.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>With pain, when you deemed it necessary. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His father set aside the stock report long enough to acknowledge his presence. “He isn't precisely a Winchester, is he? Which is on you, I might add, Charles. We've done what we could, but he is an adult. We can't simply ship him off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nor did we wish to,” his mother hastened to add. “Maxwell was our best link to you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He needs help,” Charles began, to be interrupted by his sister.</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He needs </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He has me, Honoria. He just doesn’t believe it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She threw her head, auburn locks flashing. “How m-much of you has anyone e-ever had?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles felt like weeping, breaking the China, </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Maxwell Klinger has more of me than I thought existed to offer. Wrapped neatly around his little finger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honoria’s eyes locked on his. “And d-do you suppose there is a-any chance that he is aw-aware of this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles did not. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“F-forget this present problem of b-being a ghost.” She at least gave a little smile at that. “Con-consider fixing what g-got you here in the first place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Korean Police Action? For all of my spectacular flaws, Honoria, I do not think </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> can be laid solely on my shoulders.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You k-keep detailed journals. This m-might be a good time to review them.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Remember, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thought, </span>
  <em>
    <span>what it was like to fall in love with him - then make him understand it. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His brow furrowed. “How do you know that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It t-turns out that I in-inherited m-more than just your b-butterfly collection.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want that back.” Then realization struck him. “God, you didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>read</span>
  </em>
  <span> them?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was her turn not to answer. What she said in place of “Yes, I’ve read them and confirmed my educated opinion that you are, indeed, an idiot,” was, “I have ne-ever been ashamed of you, Charles. Not for one sec-second of my life. Not for </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But if you lose h-him, I will ch-change my mind.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spoke then just to her, ignoring his parents. “Honoria do you remember when we were younger, we'd sit in the ocean and try not to let the silt slip from our fingers? And it always did no matter what we tried? That's what this feels like-- no matter what I do, Max is slipping through my fingers. And I would most happily unearth my beating heart and show it to him, but I rather suspect he'd say that 'ghosts can do gross things like that' or something of the like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She chuckled. “He would.” But then she sobered. “Close your d-damn hands, Charles. K-keep him from slipping. I b-buried one b-brother. I’m not mourning an-another one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You intend to die first in order to punish me one day?” Her tone had almost been like a hug; he decided to take it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assume that I w-will eventually h-have enough and murder you, actually. In the most dra-dramatic manner I can con-concoct, preferably.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart warmed; she was still his ally, still loved him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That day,” she added, “is f-fast approaching if you d-don’t fix Max. You’re a fa-famous doctor, aren’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the moment he was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>phantom</span>
  </em>
  <span> doctor as far as his love was concerned but he sighed, rose. “I am going.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t entirely finished however. “If he tr-truly believes y-you are dead, Charles, I st-still think he might try to r-reach you. Kent, you know? He’s te-terribly loyal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fear clutched his heart in a sweaty grip at this classical allusion. “I am going,” he repeated. Then, “I am a little hurt, loving family, that none of you reacted more viscerally to my reincarnation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mother looked up, pen at pause over her list. “Winchesters do not react viscerally dear. Perhaps you forgot while you were in that backward little country.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, this would have cowed him, but not today. “Everything else seems to have changed, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ma</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiled, recognizing the reason for his upset; she did allow Max to call her that. “There is nothing wrong with a little informality with one’s in-laws, son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You have hugged him more in six weeks than you hugged me in my life</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Charles thought. His voice became low, hurt. “You didn't accept me for any of my perceived imperfections and yet you readily accepted a dark skinned immigrant's child whose first language isn't even English. Not to mention that he wears dresses nearly as often as he wears pants.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Disbelieving and hurt, Honoria launched a croissant at him in protest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>To his surprise, his father answered. “Men have central selves, Charles. If those selves are good, the rest is but trappings. Winchesters do not predicate merit on skin color or language or outer garb.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Since fucking </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>when</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>?!</span>
  </em>
  <span> his soul cried. “You sought to revise any ‘central self’ I had from the first. I am off to find Max. He has always accepted me for what I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Except </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Honoria added, still angry that he could even think to list Klinger’s so-called “imperfections.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His father spoke again, though Charles did not turn to hear it. “We were wrong to do so, son. Perhaps you will cherish him more for the fact that he made us realize our errors... too late, we feared. We are all relieved, and so very grateful, that you are back among us in your rightful place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The only mistake I made in regards to Max is not telling him how much I cherished him. Where do you suppose I learned such a poor pattern of behavior, father?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he was gone. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Crabapple Cove</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hawkeye Pierce and Sidney Freedman are called on to help Klinger see the light.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Back in the domicile Klinger insisted he was haunting, Charles found his love in a valiant struggle with the liquor cabinet, prodding the lock with a key that would never, even unto being reforged, fit. Charles gently liberated it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My family makes me want to drink, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger blinked sleepily at him. “You can probably reach right through, huh?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. And I am not permitting you to drink yourself to death on my watch. I love you, but we are not getting married via suicide pact. You rarely drank in Korea.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Had to be sober to help with the surgeons. You guys were the most important folks in camp. And my best friend was still alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took the physician a moment to make sense of the reference. “You never referred to me thus,” he said slowly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “You wouldn’t have liked it. Tried soul mates once. That didn’t go over either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles wanted to shake the sad-eyed thing before him. “I cannot have held the privileged place of your best friend. What about, ah, Corporal O'Reilly? Or the Captains?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about them, Major?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing he would regret asking, Charles ventured, “Why do I still have my title if I am an apparition?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s on the monument.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I shall merrily egg the monument - my side, not Archie’s - at the earliest possible opportunity. For now, breakfast.” His stomach had unknotted a bit with each step he took away from his parents’ stately home. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked horrified. “You can’t eat! It will just go through!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles was exhausted and exasperated. “You just saw me eat kippers!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not proof? Only a ghost could eat those!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You saw me eat them in Korea!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw you threaten to. Like me and the jeep. It was a gag.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles sighed. “Please allow me to find someone to make you believe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We tried. The universe said no. Probably because </span>
  <em>
    <span>it</span>
  </em>
  <span> knows you’re a ghost, too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max, people being outside their homes when we called is not a sign. Look, perhaps this will convince you of my sincerity if not my existence. I am willing to go to Maine for you. We will get a map and go to whatever hamlet in which Captain Pierce now dwells.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Crabapple Cove,” Klinger supplied. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. Whatever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think ghosts can cross state lines, sir. And we’ll for sure get pulled over if there’s no one in the driver’s seat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles rubbed his brow. “Max, my family just saw and spoke to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Blood ties.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>speaking to me then?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re haunting me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles lighted on a new idea, was proud that his brain had anything new left. “What about the Father?” Catholics believed in ghosts; they had to, what with one being part of the trinity. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want an exorcism!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles decided to take this as a good sign; Klinger didn’t want him cast out, anyway. “Maine,” he repeated. “Let’s go. If we get pulled over, you may use my wealth to bail me out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Told you I didn’t want your money.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I will sit there until I can call Honoria.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can sit or float or whatever. I’m getting a shower. I’m cold.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come with me, please?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Try to wreck, huh? Then maybe we’ll be in the same fix.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grimly, Charles led him to the car. </span>
  <em>
    <span>We shall drive to Maine. We shall talk to Pierce. Then Sidney. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Once they were on the road, he chanced to ask, “Does Pierce think I am, ah, gone also?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked straight ahead with his haunted eyes. “Most of the 4077th was at your funeral.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It surprised him, but pleased him, too. “Imagine,” he murmured. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have to. I still remember the stuff they said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles' heart ached for the delusional little thing. “What did you say?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just the truth, Major.” He rested his head against the passenger side door, exhausted. “That I was heartbroken, mostly. They all knew how you felt about me somehow. Wish somebody had filled me in. You, preferably.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, God. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Max, I,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Klinger spoke as if in a dream, still looking blankly ahead. “And then I had a fight with your parents.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span>!?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles didn’t slam on the brakes, but it was a narrow thing. “I read the letter they sent you about that monument, back when we were overseas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Of course you did. Why couldn’t you have read one of the ones in which Honoria girlishly rhapsodized over my love for you? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were so mean to you and they had so much they shoulda been proud of. You were gone so you couldn’t yell at them so I did. And they said I was right but that couldn’t fix all the times they hurt you so my heart was still broken.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles blinked away the tears that threatened to say, quietly. “They’ve done much worse, but thank you for championing me. You really do love me, Max? Across death’s divide and everything? How could that possibly have occurred without me realizing?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You start to figure things out more when you’re dead I guess.” He wore one of Charles’ sweaters with the silly elbow patches and it hung way past the fingers which were now playing with a loose thread. “That’s what I’m hearing anyway. I told you we were soul mates the first week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles hadn’t believed in soul mates. </span>
  <em>
    <span>But</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he had to admit to himself, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you do not believe in phantasmagoria such as ghosts and yet you seem to be </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>living </em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>as one! </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sure we aren’t going to Maine so you can haunt the Captain for all his practical jokes?” Klinger asked after a time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I were dead, I would have seen to that already and I would not have to drive, to say nothing of paying for petrol, to do it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “I don’t think ghosts hafta be in just one place at a time. Maybe you already scared the Captain good.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles glared. “Is there a manual you happen to be working out of?” Receiving no answer, he added, “I do not know what choices, if any, we are permitted beyond the mortal plane. But it seems I have chosen to be near you. Is that worth so little?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It would have meant a hell of a lot if you’d done it while you were alive. Especially over there where I was so scared all the time. Now? I’m just unfinished business, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles had no intention of leaving things unfinished between them. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You are so much more shell shocked, my sweet than you were in Korea. Why? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger spoke then, maybe too himself. “I thought I was afraid to die all that time we were over there. I never even thought you could.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You still won’t tell me what, ah, happened to me?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An explosion.” Klinger’s eyes were closed; lavender circles lived beneath them. For all Charles could tell, he might have been talking in his sleep. “A landmine. It destroyed the jeep. Wish it was me instead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That solved </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>mystery anyway. His jeep had started for Uijongbu, but he had not been a passenger. “It was neither of us,” he said gently, and drove faster. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling into a shaded drive where a weathered mailbox read “Pierce,” it occurred to Charles that he didn’t do things like this. When he traveled it was planned (with alternate routes, for heaven’s sake) and when he visited, the person being visited knew he intended to inflict himself upon them. Of course, they also, generally speaking, knew he wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I do love you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thought, looking at the gentle, weary creature beside him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Past death (which hasn’t exactly parted us) and darkness, in war and peace… but I cannot reach you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce - he had his nickname for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>reason </span>
  </em>
  <span>- saw them out of the kitchen window and came at a run. Charles had never embraced or been embraced by the man, but it happened then and he couldn’t hear anything over Pierce’s babbling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jesus, Klinger, you couldn’t have </span>
  <em>
    <span>called</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he demanded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He thinks I’m a ghost,” Charles explained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course he does. After the invisible camel, we should have seen this coming.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving Klinger alone for a moment, Charles expressed his distress at being exiled from the land of the living and asked, “Can you reach Sidney?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So far ahead of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they went inside, Hawk tried to reason with Klinger. “Have I ever steered you wrong?” he asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t tell me he was in love with me when I coulda done something about it. You wouldn't sign my section 8.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawk didn’t flinch but he also didn’t make a joke about beginning to reconsider that stance, something for which Charles was grateful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger went on. “You had no problem thinking I was goldbricking when I was sick. And you never stood up for me nearly close to what you did for Radar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles attempted to halt this. “Max I deserve your anger. The Captain does not. I knew how much he cared for you from the first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re dead, you don’t get a vote.” Then he noticed something. “Why do you have lobsters in a fish tank?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Erin didn’t want them eaten at our last visit. My turn. Why the change in style?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Felt right,” Klinger said stubbornly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Victorian mourning rituals and severe depression,” Charles corrected. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No vote.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Awww, black for a year, huh? Way to go, Charles. You got to him after all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Black for as long as I want,” said Klinger before Charles could say that it was less after all and more </span>
  <em>
    <span>afterlife</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Maybe forever.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gently, Pierce offered, “I think it’s supposed to transition to grey, then lilac.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. But people aren’t supposed to tell you they love you after they get blown up. And you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>not supposed to be told by their sister after she reads their journals.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles winced and silently prayed Honoria had redacted the truly purple passages. Pierce looked very interested. “What did they say, Charles?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Imagine the very worst.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow. Didn’t know you were capable.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He wasn’t,” Klinger said dryly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce ignored this. “Details, Charles.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I came for your help, </span>
  <em>
    <span>doctor</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re dead. Who will it hurt?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max, if you carry on like this. We’re trying to convince I am alive,” (a status that even he was beginning to doubt), “you imbecilic excuse for a physician!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And he doesn’t want to know how you fantasized about lifting him up and letting one of those costumes of his fan out over your hips? Just guessing.” The bright red spots in Charles’ cheeks said such guesses had been near the mark. Hawk left off tormenting to turn to the Sergeant. “Klinger, just a thought. If Charles is dead, honestly truly dead, do you think he'd be trying to patch things up? Don't you think he'd be in heaven or reincarnated or whatever instead of following you around?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To Charles he said, “You're gonna have quite the time trying to reanimate yourself you know. I've done it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shrugged. “Private Weston stuck around. Why shouldn’t he? And if he does patch things up, he’ll be gone again. Dunno if I can do that again.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce dialed for Sidney, asking as it rang, “Wouldn't it be better to not have him hovering around?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger didn’t answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey Sid! It's your favorite patient here. I have your second favorite here and I was really hoping you could make the drive here to come visit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles longed to take Klinger’s hand, but given what he’d put him through it felt unfair. “Would you prefer me to go?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>My love… </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Then I’d be back to the same nothing I always had.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I’ll fly you in and pick you up,” Pierce said into the phone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Use my card,” said Charles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It won’t work,” Klinger informed him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes you remember that funeral we all went to a month or so ago? Well it seems our dearly departed is not so departed and Max can't seem to understand that he's not a ghost,” Hawk informed Sidney. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger ambled back to the tank. He had Charles’ money. Maybe he could buy Erin her own lobsters. Maybe a little octopus. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles trailed after him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not crazy,” Klinger told him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could defend you more easily if you would agree to entertain the possibility I might not be, ah, dead. I could do many things.”</span>
  <em>
    <span> Propose for instance</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “What if we managed to get the army to admit it was all a big misunderstanding?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me being drafted was a misunderstanding. Still kept me there three years.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The call had been ended so Charles shot an imploring look at his fellow surgeon. “Pierce? Please? You speak crazy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye elbowed him. “Don’t be mean, Charles.” Then he took Klinger’s hand and placed it in the other man’s. “Warm, isn't it?” he asked, a bolt of pure pity striking him as Charles trembled and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hoped</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you know ghosts can’t be warm?” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wow. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Klinger, you worked in OR with us. You saw men die all the time. Death is literally chilling. Ghosts don’t swallow or blush or breathe.” He elbowed Charles to add, “Or experience sexual desire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God, you’re as bad as my sister. This is hardly the time!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the jest had accomplished what Pierce had hoped for. “See!? That’s a blush. Ghost can’t do that, Klinger. Do you know how I know? I studied the vascular system. Ghosts don’t have a vascular system.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger didn’t care. “Do you have a place I can go and sleep? I was going to bed when someone decided he needed to drive up to Maine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He drove? And that didn't maybe clue you in???”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Driving killed him but there’s no reason he doesn’t remember how.” Unable to win, Hawkeye found him a place to get settled before returning to a very low Charles Emerson Winchester III. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do I do?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed, offering solidarity in his strange state of suffering. “Sidney will know. Don’t lose your stiff upper lip over this. He does love you. He wouldn’t be so broken up if he didn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but was it not my stoicism that caused this mess?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your fear,” Hawk corrected. “And you had good reasons for being scared.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you believe that he's made my parents nearly human-- a feat I couldn't accomplish in my life?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is a wonderful little thing,” Hawk agreed. “ - if a little superstitious - and you were the one to see it. Pat yourself on the back for that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'm not sure you understand how wonderful he is. He made my parents-- my Winchester parents-- he made them human, bearable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure it wasn't your death that did that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Never.” He saw the monument in his mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bet it helped. I don’t doubt that Klinger could win them over - he’s adorable. But I bet you’ll find we all changed when we lost you. You were one of us. Family.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Max said you all went to the funeral? And said nice things?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sound surprised.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you not be surprised in my somewhat ethereal place?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Family, Charles,” he repeated. “We didn’t like each other every minute of every day, maybe, but we loved you. Maybe we should’ve said it better when we had the chance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It seems I never realize what I have until I have lost it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nobody does. But you got to come back. Just do better this time. We will too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles looked as though he might weep. “Does no one realize that I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am </span>
  </em>
  <span>trying?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Try differently,” Pierce suggested. “He didn’t drop your hand. You’ve got a beautiful boyfriend up there who will let you kiss him even if he thinks you are a ghost.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried that. He did not return the gesture.” He went on.“Pierce, I spent six weeks in Korea after you all left trying to find a way home. No one wanted to help, least of all the army. I had no money-- they'd shipped all my things home without me. And it took six weeks for all the paperwork to go through and call it a mistake with not much more than a 'sorry' and then I have to come home and convince the love of my life? I'm so exhausted, Pierce. Truly exhausted. It feels like real death, you know? I have begun to think he is right and I am being punished for all my mistakes.” He tried for a grin. “Perhaps some of someone else’s too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sid won’t be here for awhile. Go rest, huh?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead of climbing the stairs to lay down beside Klinger, Charles slumped into a chair. Once he was asleep, Pierce discreetly checked his pulse. Assured that Charles was not, in fact, Ghost Charles, he went to check on Klinger. In the far corner of his study, the Sergeant was curled into a ball, Charles’ sweater made into a blanket. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re not getting that back, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he predicted, but he hoped Charles </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>get Klinger back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sidney looked on his two favorite (by their own description) patients with gentle eyes. Hawk was worried but amused. Max was depressed; he didn’t need a screening to determine that. The poor thing’s collar was wilted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, tell me about your boyfriend, Klinger,” he began. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s dead, Sid. You were at the funeral.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, so he’s dead. He's still choosing to spend eternity with you so let's not be hasty about you leaving the rest of us, okay?” From what Pierce had told him on the drive from the airport, this was the big worry. If Klinger couldn’t be convinced that Charles was alive, Pierce was afraid life itself might lose its luster. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked half hopeful for a moment. “You think he might stay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s been with you since he got home, right?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, yeah. But I kinda sprinkled some iron shavings around. Ghosts get stuck if you do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hawkeye is right. I must meet this kid’s family. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Alright. Well, do you mind me asking how he’s in Maine if the iron is in Massachusetts?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger reached below his shirt (covered, Sidney was amused to see, by another shirt that could only belong to the Major) and pulled out a crude thong with a bit of iron bound in it. “Tah-da.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. That makes perfect sense, Klinger. But do you want Charles with you if you’ve trapped him?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to lose him again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve never liked having your choices taken away. Give him a choice. Bet he stays. I would just for the costumes.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawkeye peeked in, the vision of a nervous parent. “He’s worn nothing but black since.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can do a lot with black. Now, out. You had your chance with me and you just insisted on leaving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pierce held his hands up in an I-surrender gesture. “Just trying to help.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I don’t do group rates. Wait your turn.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Charles is paying. You could.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This opened a new line of inquiry. “I thought you inherited the Winchester fortune, Klinger. Lock stocks and wine bottles.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did. I don’t want it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Surely, if the Major is gone,” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger shook his head vehemently; he might even have started to shiver. “His parents have a lot of money. You know what they did with it? They hurt him - a bunch! - then they put up a big stone to say how much they loved him. That kind of money… it would just make me a bad person.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s nothing you want? Nothing that would make you feel better?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing I can’t get with my own money. A cat maybe.” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A very good sign. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Why a cat, Klinger?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They can see ghosts.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Out of the corner of one eye Sidney saw Hawk lose it but he made no sign. “So, you'd like a pet Charles could interact with as well?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. It’s his house. I’m not kicking him out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I gathered that from the iron.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He had a chance to be with me in life and he didn't take it. I wasn't going to let him be stupid about it in death, too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A fine plan,” Sidney agreed. “Quite sensible. Now, what say we three amigos go and get you your cat before Charles wakes up? Deal?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger looked from Hawk to Sidney like a kid reading his parents. “We can?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing what Sidney was thinking, Hawk said, “We absolutely can.” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Crabapple Cat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Klinger finds something he wants in his strange new life.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Charles woke and went, Sidney was quick to note, from awareness to panic… in about 17 seconds. Before the Major could even ask, Sidney assured him that Max was fine. </p><p>“Hawkeye took him shopping,” he said, making his voice as soothing as possible. “He’s perfectly fine.”</p><p>Charles poured and drank a glass of water mostly, Sidney guessed, to keep himself from spilling over into a full tirade. “The only thing that allowed me to make it out of Asia,” he finally said, “was the knowledge that I would see my sister and Max,” <em>with those darkly bright eyes of his that now see <strong>through</strong> me</em>, “again. Having him out of my sight… I worry.”</p><p>“That’s perfectly reasonable.”</p><p>“I did not expect to see Max in Boston, of course,” <em>haunting my grave, looking so pained and lovely that I wished to throw him down in the dirt and the leaves and do all of the things I never grew brave enough to do in Korea… </em></p><p>“But now you are glad to have found him there?”</p><p>Charles raised an eyebrow. “Did Pierce tell you to stay so that you could ‘fix’ me, Doctor?” </p><p>“He suggested I stay because he knew you would worry with Max gone. I know you keep both your heart and mind under guard, Major. I assure you that I left my lock picks in New York.” </p><p>“Thank you. It is Max, entire, that I am concerned for. Hopefully Pierce can reach him since I cannot.”</p><p>Sidney saw a flash of jealousy enter his eyes. Hawkeye was alive as far as Klinger was concerned; Hawk could touch him. “I know it may be difficult to see it, Major, but your late arrival does have a silver lining. If you had arrived home with everyone else, you might never have told him how you felt.” </p><p>Charles lifted that eyebrow again. “Sending the love of my life into a depressive spiral is a silver lining?” </p><p>“If you intend to be around to catch him when he comes out, yes.” </p><p>“Certainly I mean to… but I find myself, ah, mistrustful of my own… strength, I suppose.” </p><p>“It isn’t a lack of strength,” Sidney reassured him. “It’s grief.”</p><p>“Can the dead experience grief?”</p><p>“We agreed you were alive, I thought.”</p><p>“The ‘we’ in this room, yes. Perhaps it would be better if I were…” <em>Perhaps I deserve this. Perhaps I should be exiled from his strong arms because I sought to keep him from my shallow heart. </em></p><p>“Even after you’ve seen the effects?” Sidney gently shot this over one shoulder as he busied himself making coffee he didn’t actually want. </p><p>“Then Max would be in pain for a reason at least.” </p><p>He decided it would be elaborate coffee; if he didn’t feel pressured, Charles might open up - as a wound is opened, Sidney reflected, to release the poison inside. “Major, I know you don’t care for my traveling show but if something happens to you, Klinger won’t last the week.” </p><p>“He already thinks something <em>has</em> happened to me,” Charles countered. “He’s lasted. Not well, perhaps…” </p><p>Sidney shook a spoon at him, lifting it out of the coffee he’d been stirring. “He won’t have a ghost next time. At least, so my medical journals tell me.” He found maple syrup and introduced it to the coffee; he was overseeing a very odd pair - oughtn’t they to have a tribute? </p><p>“I'm not at risk for ending my own life,” said the surgeon, brushing the idea off. He had chased that darkness before and saw no reason to do so again. “You needn't worry about that.” </p><p>“I don’t,” said Sidney easily, as if it were obvious. “But failing to live your life - if you can stand the pun - would be just as detrimental.” <em>And not just to <strong>you</strong>, Major. </em></p><p>“How do I go about my life with that look in his eyes? Do you know what it is like to be dead, Doctor? I am learning… and I much now prefer those myths where the dead drink from streams of forgetfulness.” </p><p>“Maxwell is on his way back to you. He wants something to care for - that’s a wonderful sign, Major!”</p><p>“Something?” <em>Me? </em>he hoped, knowing he didn’t deserve it. </p><p>“Hawkeye took him to get a cat. Cats need daily attention- which means he’ll get up every day.”</p><p>
  <em>Love, I would have built you a <strong>cat sanctuary </strong>if you had asked me. I left you every valuable thing I possess- why am <strong>I </strong>worth so precious little? </em>
</p><p>Sidney saw the pain in him. “It's the best scenario for right now, Major. If he can't get up for you, your family or himself, he'll get up for a cat who's solely dependent on him. And once he’s up, you’ll be there. You are allowed to need things, too.”</p><p>The proud man’s voice actually wavered. “I need Max..” He gathered his strength. “Were it not for him, I might not have tried so hard to come home.” </p><p>“He knows,” Sidney assured him. “But try to be specific. He still loves clothes. Lose some or mismatch them. Burn dinner.” </p><p>Charles was no less skeptical of psychiatry in his undead state than he had been when he’d still been recognized among the living… <em>all</em> the living. “I should mismatch my socks to get him to talk to me? How's that going to make him realize I'm alive?” </p><p>“He’ll give up the ghost fixation on his own,” Sidney promised. “And he already talks to you. Let him do things for you.” </p><p>Charles glanced at the clock. “Where did they go? Surely it shouldn't take this long to find a cat!” </p><p>“Not just any cat, Major. And I think they’re buying us dinner - with your money.”</p><p>Charles rolled his eyes. “Hopefully Pierce can talk fast. Klinger does not believe that ghosts can eat. What is so special about this cat they’ve gone to find?” </p><p>“Much as you distrust the profession, we do research the same as you. Animal therapy is new but promising.” </p><p>“A... therapy cat? I suppose similar to Corporal O'Reilly’s zoo?” O'Reilly and Sidney had teamed up in the final months of the war to do some animal therapy research, Charles remembered. The myopic Iowan was probably still at work with his critters in between harvest times.</p><p>“Yes. Something that senses distress and tries to mitigate it. Ironically Asian exotics work best.” </p><p><em>Something that senses distress. It’s furry back will probably puff up every time I enter the room</em>. He had other concerns as well. “What am I to do if Max doesn't want to get up and feed it?” </p><p>“I think he will. Max has a caretaker’s heart under all those flounces.” </p><p>“But what if he shirks his pet-related chores off on me? He knows I can do things - ghost or not. What if he just stops?” </p><p>“Why does that frighten you so?”</p><p>If Charles had not been exhausted, he would have fought this. He had entirely too many memories of psychiatrists asking why. “Because… because what if he stops caring for the cat and then... he stops caring for me?” </p><p>“Major, he didn’t stop all the time he had no reason to hope. And I don’t just mean during your un-demise.” </p><p>“He’d be in better shape if he had,” Charles lamented. <em>I’m a ghost and I’m killing every spark of life in his eyes. </em>“Who wants to love a ghost?” he tried for a joking tone and failed. </p><p>Sidney gave him a wry look. “I’ve heard of gallows humor - but crypt-side comedy? Don’t quit your day job, Major.”</p><p>He hadn’t even given a thought to work since returning. Someone really ought to let the hospital know that he lived. </p><p>“Klinger does love you. We all know it. Most of us knew it in Korea. Hell, Potter called me the third week you were there because he was worried Klinger would smash his fluttery little heart to pieces over you! The only way you will earn your ghostly title is if you vanish from his life.” </p><p>“If he told me to go, I'd do it without a second thought, you know. I could live somewhere else.” <em>An abandoned house… nice cozy crypt… See? My humor is top flight. </em></p><p>Sidney squeezed his hand. “He put iron filings on your floor so you couldn’t leave.”</p><p>Charles laughed. “Someone should write it all down, his superstitions. Iron is for witches, according to Coleridge, anyway.” </p><p>“One fantastical figure at a time. So, Hawk didn’t fill me in on how the war ended for you. I can see it took a toll and I doubt you’ve had much support considering what you came home to. Want to get it off your chest?” </p><p>“You’re a far better man than any psychiatrist I was ever sent to, doctor.”</p><p>Sidney saluted him. “Is that a yes?”</p><p>“Why not? The end of my Korean comedy of errors went like this: I was left in Korea for a month and a half longer than my unit. There were enemy troops who hadn't gotten word that the war was over so UN troops - especially Americans - were being hunted down like game animals. When I wasn’t patching their wounds, I was dodging sniper fire. All terribly exciting if you’re the type who hates worrying about tomorrow.” </p><p>“But you lived to see your tomorrows renewed. You survived to come back from the grave to friends and family who love you.” </p><p><em>Family…  </em>“My father still was barely able to say he cared for me. Even after burying me, he couldn't say it. When he saw me at brunch, he was worried about the cost of re-engraving my headstone.”</p><p>“Make a better life without him. You have Honoria and Max. You won’t like to hear it, but that’s more family than some people get.” </p><p>“I find this isn’t quite helping, Major.”</p><p>“What would?</p><p>“Rewinding time?</p><p>“Ah. Max always said you were smart. There were a lot of things you neglected to say last year or the year before. I have a sneaking suspicion Max would enjoy learning the specifics.” </p><p>Charles failed to see how they might matter - the words he’d failed to say, the nights he hadn’t warmed him, the man he hadn’t been. “I can try to tell him, but he may not believe.” </p><p>“That’s depression, Major. And it’s being treated. You know those medications take time.The good news is that he’s taking the medication at all. He’s been hurt - deeper than ever. You can’t force him down that path faster than he’s ready to go. What you can do is hold his hand while he walks it.” </p><p>Charles could only offer to try. And since he was on call anyway, Sidney decided to try to heal some old wounds. </p><p>“You mentioned other psychiatrists. You never did tell me why you were sent to them.” </p><p>Somehow Charles’ face conveyed the sentiment: <em>I am only answering this because when Pierce called, you came to help Max. </em>“... so I’d stop being a disappointment.” </p><p>“At nine?” </p><p>Charles smiled to note that he had remembered; he was speaking to a true professional anyway. “I stayed inside to study and didn’t chase the girls on the playground.”</p><p>“Sounds positively dreadful.” </p><p>Charles chuckled grimly and fetched his own cup of coffee. “You wouldn’t think so, would you?” </p><p>“There was more to it?”</p><p>“For me? Not really. For them? Yes. They saw something… something utterly unacceptable in me.”</p><p>“Does Max know?” </p><p>“Surely, Max, of all people, knows that I am not straight.” </p><p>Sidney felt quite proud of the man in that moment. It took a great deal of strength to take on, inhabit, and defend an identity that so many saw as deviant (even evil) - especially with a boyfriend who wore dresses. “Max saw you get un-married to a woman, date an LIP in his dress, and escort a mademoiselle around,” Sidney reminded him. </p><p>Charles waved off the charades he’d indulged in to try to suppress his desires. “Max knows I love him. I just wish I had been the one to tell him. Back in Korea.” </p><p>Sidney decided to press this. “He knows now but he doesn’t know about how you felt then. He doesn’t know what you’ve endured or overcome.” </p><p>Charles wished his coffee might become something stronger. <em>But if wishes worked, I never would have been sent to war… and I’d be in your arms, Max, right now. </em>“I’m sure Max doesn’t want to hear about failed conversion therapy— beatings, electroshock— it doesn’t make for a quiet evening meal.”</p><p>“He wants to know <em>you</em>,” Sidney corrected. “Hasn’t he earned the right?” When Charles failed to answer, he added, “It might help him understand your hesitation over there if he knew what was done to you, what you were fighting against.” </p><p>“How does one go about bringing up such a... mentally taxing subject... especially to one who is already emotionally fragile?” </p><p>“He already fought your parents for you,” the psychiatrist reminded him. “Tell him what he was really fighting for.” </p><p>“I’m sure he already knows I’m not the son my parents wanted. They buried the one they wanted- for real - and they’ve made that quite clear for the last thirty years that I would never live up to their expectations.” <em>And therefore would never be entirely worthy of my name… or their love. </em></p><p>“Isn’t it time to break free of their expectations? You are not the Charles Emerson Winchester you were.” </p><p>The Major sighed, thinking of their cold faces, their eyes like windows in which he could see nothing but his own unwanted reflection. “Death almost made them proud of me. And yet they couldn’t hardly look me in the eye.” </p><p>“Perhaps they were ashamed.” </p><p>“Good,” Charles said - and meant it. “A slight penance for the shame they’ve made me feel my entire life.” </p><p>“It might be therapeutic for you and Max to take them on together- symbolically if nothing else. Happiness is the best revenge,” Sidney offered. </p><p>“All my life I’ve been so afraid of them keeping Honoria from me... that I never stopped to realize they had no sway over Honoria. She’d see me whether they permitted her or not.” </p><p>Sidney smiled, sensing that a corner was being turned. “And now you don’t <em>just</em> have Honoria.” </p><p>At that moment the door opened, bringing home their two missing members and the smell of calabash style seafood. </p><p>Klinger took one look at his phantom paramour and said, “You look so tired, Major. I didn’t know ghosts could be tired.”</p><p>Charles turned to fight the emotions off of his face. Sidney had said it would end. He owed him his trust. </p><p>“I… I have to lie down. Gentlemen.”</p><p>Klinger frowned. The Major had ascended the stairs without meeting his cat. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Acceptance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That night, as the Maine wind tormented the tide and the fried clams and beer disappeared, Sidney kept an eye on Klinger. He truly was hopeful on the two counts he had spoken of to Charles (agreement to take medication and interest in a pet) but a third reason was joining them. Three times over the course of the meal, Klinger carefully sat Hibiki down and went to check on his “ghost.” The second time, Hawk held a finger to his lips to signal Sid into silence - and followed to see. </p><p>Klinger entered the guest bedroom on quiet feet and stopped just shy of the bed. Pierce wondered how the poor, lost thing could look on the steady rise and fall of Charles’ chest and not realize what he was seeing… but then again, how many times had Klinger likely envisioned Charles’ death, his unusual eyes leeched of light, his voice silenced? Klinger was perfectly quiet, himself, as he slipped loose from his purloined sweater and tucked it all around the sleeping man. For a second, he took Charles’ hand and brought it to his mouth. Pierce teared up; Charles would have killed for that touch. </p><p>The clever, wise-cracking physician wished he might build a bridge back between the two. For the time being, the best he could do was vow to start the morning with his dad’s signature French toast. </p><p>***</p><p>The next morning, Klinger was letting Hibiki lick butter off of his fingers when Charles made his way downstairs. When the former Corporal’s long fingers brushed over the cat’s fur affectionately, the watching (haunted?) Winchester failed to entirely hide a look of the purest yearning Pierce had ever seen. <em>You’d give up every speck of skill in those medical magician’s fingers of yours, </em>thought Hawkeye, <em>to feel his hands in your hair - what’s left of it, anyway</em>. For not the first time, he felt frustrated with Charles. In Korea, Klinger would have <em>danced </em>into his arms. Why hadn’t he asked? </p><p>“What sent you running upstairs last night?” he asked the man, cornering him by the coffee so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “Are you feeling okay?” </p><p>Charles’ uncommon eyes darted to the man he loved but could not reach. “Not one damn day in my life, Pierce.” He flashed a painful little smile. “Or after.” Then he rallied. “Forgive me… I never even thanked you for taking us in, for reaching out to Doctor Freedman. I am most grateful.” </p><p>Pierce surprised them both then by pressing his lips to his forehead. “Family,” he reminded the stunned (ghost) surgeon. “I can do that now.” </p><p>Charles ignored this. “I can’t believe you didn’t burn that bathrobe. There must be a flea circus in the breast pocket and a lice limboing in the sleeves!”</p><p>“This isn’t the one from Korea,” Pierce assured him. “Peg found it for me. Beej ran it over every day on the way to work to give it that authentic Swamp style look.” </p><p>Rolling his eyes, Charles followed him to the table. </p><p>“Show him your cat, Klinger,” he said as he doused one piece of French toast in sweetened condensed milk, one in Karo, and one in maple syrup. </p><p>Breathing a little easier upon realizing Charles was still with him, Klinger held out the chubby creature. “Isn’t he the most beautiful cat you’ve ever seen?” he enthused. </p><p><em>Beautiful. Yes, like you. </em>“He’s lovely,” Charles managed. <em>And I could much more easily bear his presence in your lap if I could have <strong>you </strong>in <strong>mine</strong></em>. </p><p>“His name is Hibiki,” Klinger explained solemnly- his seriousness making him seem very young. </p><p>Charles extended a finger to touch a tiny paw with rose petal pink pads. “It is a pleasure to make your singular fuzzy acquaintance, kitling.”</p><p><em>Oh God. He wants to call <strong>Klinger </strong>that</em>, thought Hawkeye. </p><p>“Woo,” said Hibiki. </p><p><em>Whoo</em>, thought Pierce. </p><p>“Named after your camel, yes?” Charles asked. One of his fingers now shared space with one of Klinger’s atop that tiny head. </p><p>“That was Habibi,” Klinger corrected. “Hibiki is Japanese for echo. If I talk, he talks, too.” This was confirmed by a chorus of “woos” from the cat.”</p><p>Charles sighed. “Maxwell, I find there is something I wish to tell you, but it is hardly fit conversation for a breakfast table. Walk with me?”</p><p>Maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe it wouldn’t help. But he was brave enough (or numb enough) to take it on now. Leaving Hibiki in the care of Hawk, Klinger joined him on the quaint, maple-lined streets of the village. Watching, Hawk saw them fall into step the way they always had - and he hoped with all that he was. </p><p>Under turning trees - burning with a brilliance in the face of loss - Charles gave up the terrible secrets of his youth. He disclosed the beatings, the “therapies,” the films… the arranged “dates” where he had failed (always failed) to perform. </p><p>“You can see,” he concluded, sounding shaky, “why I fought all that I felt for you. I was frightened. I was also wrong.”</p><p>Klinger knew that there were terrible secrets, terrible shadows, in his beloved’s past. Mrs. Charles Emerson Winchester II had told him as much, had sought a forgiveness that he had not been able to give.“When they sent you to those places… Major, what were they trying to do?”</p><p>Charles looked straight ahead. “Break me of my homosexuality, love.” He sighed, a sound like the last November gusts before snow came, a sound to rattle brown leaves in high places. “They succeeded better than they thought to… they kept me silent when faced with you - the one person I would ever love. I do, you know? I did from the first.”</p><p>“I know you did, Major.”</p><p><em>Do. Max. I do. </em>But Sidney had cautioned him. He wouldn’t push. Wouldn’t insist. “Come on, love. Let’s go get your cat. Let’s go home.” </p><p>Klinger took his hand then and Charles felt faint. It was more than he’d had yet. Perhaps he had been right to come to Maine… “I will,” he cleared the emotion from his throat, ignored the sudden dampness on his lashes. “I will get you the fabric to make Hibiki some bow ties, if you wish it. He.. he didn’t know me, so I think he can be excused from black.”</p><p>Inside, Klinger put the cat in his arms. “Maybe a tiny cape, like my blue and red one?”</p><p>Memories assaulted Charles. Hadn’t he - so often, <em>so often</em> - wanted to lay Klinger down in that cape, to wrap them both in its folds? “That… that would be nice.”</p><p>“He likes you,” Klinger informed him after a moment. </p><p>“How can you tell?”</p><p>“He’s not struggling to get away.” </p><p>Charles looked up and asked, very quietly, “Like you?”</p><p>“I like you, too. I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>For now, it was enough. In his arms, Hibiki made a happy sound, punctuating Klinger’s declaration. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Dying Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Boston in autumn was glorious: cobblestones and turning colors, the faint, cold smell of sea water. If he had been among the living, in Max’s eyes, Charles Emerson Winchester III would have bought the man a bouquet of brightly colored scarves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Max still wore black and Charles still hoped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Death, however, turned out to be unexpectedly liberating. Charles did not fear police, despite Max’s garb. (The veil helped.) He no longer worried about society pages or stares. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Brave new world? Brave new </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>me</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>. All because you are beside me. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And, little by little, Charles won back the man he’d lost. Once, when Max was much too tired to go into ghost logic, he even managed to hold onto him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cry a lot,” Max said once, startled. “I didn’t know ghosts could.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Darling, </span>
  </em>
  <span>thought Charles, </span>
  <em>
    <span>this ghost misses you as lungs must miss air: with every breath. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Sid, it turned out, had been right about little Hibiki with his flat face. Klinger did care for him diligently. And when despair was so strong in Charles he could taste in his mouth, Hibiki came to </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, too, and said “Woo!” insistently until he forgot himself and got him a treat or played with him with a string and forgot how badly he was hurting, how spectacular a mess he’d made of his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took to introducing Klinger to his old haunts, a rueful smile lifting his mouth at the term. They walked the Common and the Harbor, browsed bookstores (Klinger still liked his voice and allowed him to read to him) and record shops. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were returning from one such adventure when he recognized the shine of a knife. He pushed Max aside and thought it was over, felt nothing at all until blood began to warm the skin below his shoulder, cooling in autumn wind. He spared a wry look for Max. “You may just get your ghost after all, love.” Then he slipped through his hands and onto wet stone; blood ran, pooled in the center of fallen maple leaves, far brighter than any dying color they’d ever thought to produce. Raindrops glittered in Max’s dark hair. It was, Charles thought, a fine sight for dying eyes- the scattered crystal glitter of autumn rain, the blue-black sheen of soft strands he loved to see studded with flowers. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I wanted to see you with the white berries of mistletoe, bright against your dark locks, darling… but perhaps you are right about ghosts. Perhaps I shall see you always. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The Maxwell Q. Klinger who thought him dead might not have known what to do. But another version of him dwelled inside that grief-broken creature: a capable Corpsman who had been trained in triage. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>Maxwell Klinger knew that he couldn’t lose Charles again. Not without following him into the Great Dark. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>Maxwell didn’t want to laid to rest under that hulking and horrible monument. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*** </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I miss you in my bones</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Max thought, his hands leaving grisly prints on the armrests of a waiting room chair. His pretty beaded little change purse with its golden clasps was empty of change. He’d reached Nori and Hawk. They would do the rest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By morning, they flanked him on every sides - these war-made friends, friends of his widow-hood. They placed warm things to drink in his hands and removed them when he forgot to set them aside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I killed him,” he’d whispered to Honoria. “I didn’t believe him… I said he was gone and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She held him and their tears tangled as their lives had; the fiercest beats of their hearts - the beats they wanted to give away, the breaths and years they would have happily lost - echoed with the same name. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mrs. Winchester?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They all turned. Honoria hadn’t called their hateful parents. Which meant… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your husband is asking for you, dear.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And as that grey-haired nurse took Max’s bloodied hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Honoria swore she would double that woman’s pension even if it bankrupted her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*** </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their eyes met. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had happened before - this invisible, electric joining. In Korea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At his grave. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew. I knew you weren’t a ghost.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maxwell, please do not cry. It makes me want to buy you real estate or stocks or diamonds and I cannot do any of that from a hospital bed.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want any of that. Just listen, okay? I can maybe say it once so you understand. I know I hurt you. I was afraid that if I let you be back, really back… you’d change your mind. You wouldn’t want me. You’d know you made a mistake. I never… I never loved anyone the way I loved you. Not before you died or after. I was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>scared</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of me?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of having you. Of not getting to have you. Of not being what you thought.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A tired smile tugged at the surgeon’s mouth. “And now that we have been sharing a life so to speak?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger came close enough to see the rise and fall of his chest, the flush of life in his cheeks and lips. “Well, it doesn’t seem like you can live without me, Charles.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Maxwell, love.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And even if I could, I would not want to. Never again. </span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Finally Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cozied up in their shared bed, weeks later, Charles told his beloved, “I was wrong. I was so wrong. Not to ask you… to burden you. I meant to change the documents, dear, never meant you to find out…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t be mad at you for wanting to take care of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will take care of you always, sweetling. And, ah, since I am now quite well…?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you asking to take me to bed, Major?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We do not exactly have far to go.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want you </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Charles.” He leaned in, whispered his request. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles gaped. “Our first night together and you want it to be in a crypt? That is incredibly morbid, darling, and it’s going to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>cold</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“First, it’s not gonna take long. We can come back in and get warm. Second, it’ll help me lay all the ugly stuff to rest.” He kissed his scar. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>was how Charles ended up making out with his beloved under the shadow of his own ostentatious memorial. (The inscription had been removed, at least). Nearly hanging from his lips, Max spoke almost into his mouth. “Didn’t think you’d agree to this, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>honestly </span>
  </em>
  <span>think I would say no? Max, do you not know how much I’ve longed for you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, because you didn’t tell me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles looked chagrined but caught the sly edge of Max’s grin. “I thought you had my journals.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I couldn’t even look at your handwriting,” Klinger admitted. “Living here… it almost killed me, Major, but I couldn’t stay away. Your clothes smelled like you at least.” He kissed up his neck. “I used to talk to you at night.” He smiled shyly. “Before you came back as a ghost an’ all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you say, my pretty one?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That I missed you. That I was sorry we mostly just argued.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was playing, dearest. Flirting.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess. But I did </span>
  <em>
    <span>that… </span>
  </em>
  <span>and I never said anything about your eyes.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you wish to say?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what color they are.” He raised himself up to look into those eyes. “They pick up colors like the sea and I wanted to burn all that army green because they made them look like ice.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles promised to let Klinger dress him in any color he wished. Around them, autumn colors burned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hold me tight, Charles. Make me believe.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The taller man pressed tight against him, tangled their limbs. “You are looking at me strangely, Max. I am not a ghost. I swear it.”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Arching up into him, Klinger smiled despite the chill, the wet leaves making themselves felt beneath him. “Are you sure? My Charles would never be so common and vulgar.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Major laughed; he deserved such teasing, perhaps. “Call me <em>your</em> Charles, darling, and I shall be whatever you wish. A kelpie. A pixie…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How ‘bout a dearly beloved?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat up, clasping his hands. “Yes. Oh, yes. But Max… should I not be the one to ask?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You already gave me your life once. Let me give you mine back. It’s not fancy or anything, but I’ll love you forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles wept softly into his hair. Max let him - but just for a moment. “Now,” he held his face in his hands, kissed brightness into his lips, “will you please do something with me that makes white totally off limits for a dress color?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winchesters loved a challenge. Charles didn’t settle for “something;” he did </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And much as he might have wished not to stroke his ego (having already stroked everything else he could reach), Max had to admit he did it well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little less than a year later, Max came to his beloved with shining eyes. “You know, Major, I’ve been thinking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heaven help us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hibiki didn’t get to dress up for Halloween last year, what with you being dead and all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And by ‘Hibiki,’ you mean you, yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Also me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you have lighted upon some excuse for costumes, I presume? Halloween party, perhaps?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Halloween </span>
  <em>
    <span>wedding</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was so appropriate and ridiculous that it nearly made him laugh until he cried. He knew from the look in Max’s eyes that Honoria and their friends from the 4077th must already have RSVP’d. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything you wish, my love, but I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>going as a ghost.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re no fun at all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the truth was that having warm, living, loving Charles was a blessing Maxwell strove to live up to every day. The monument still cast its shadows across his dreams sometimes, but he woke up in Charles’ arms - in Charles’ heart and in his life - and the shadow grew fainter as they added anniversaries and memories to a shared and happy life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>End! </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>